News Round Up

• “We have lift-off for summer holidays!” – The Daily Mail says the Government are due to relax foreign travel restrictions on June 21st, making it possible for Brits to visit ‘green list’ countries without having to take two Covid tests on return
• “No Reopening Please, We’re British” – Joseph C. Sternberg in the Wall St Journal says the reason Boris isn’t reopening quicker, in spite of Britain’s impressive vaccine rollout, is because he’s terrified of the new, all-powerful medical panjandrums barking at him from the sidelines
• “Did Covid cases plateau in March?” – Writing in the Spectator, Ross Clark considers the implications of the latest data from Imperial College’s React study, which suggests the decline in infections levelled off last month
• “The hidden death toll of lockdown” – In this week’s Spectator Diary, Professor Carl Heneghan highlights some alarming data about the cost of the lockdown
• “Pub staff will check drinkers’ phones to prove they have registered with Test and Trace” – According to the latest guidance, pub staff will be expected to check customers’ phones to ensure they have the NHS Test and Trace app, the Telegraph reports
• “Covid vaccine passports at the FA Cup final would be ‘discrimination’, ‘wrong’ and create a ‘slippery slope’” – In an interview with iNews, former Wolverhampton Wanderers goalkeeper Carl Ikeme has urged the FA not to adopt vaccine passports
• “Boris on liberty: the PM has always been against ID cards – until now” – The Spectator has published a round up of Boris’s various attacks on identity cards dating back to 2004
• “Herd immunity is within reach. So why won’t ministers talk about it?” – Herd immunity “is not just possible, but probable”, writes Fraser Nelson in the Telegraph, but “ministers still won’t be frank about their strategy”
• “Ministers are sleepwalking into a ‘zero Covid’ strategy” – Ministers claim to have rejected ‘Zero Covid’, but their plans for twice-weekly testing and vaccination of twentysomethings suggest otherwise, says Patrick O’Flynn in the Telegraph
• “Vaccine certification: when intolerance meets hypochondria” – “It is time to stop allowing fear to rule our lives,” writes Tom Moran in the Critic
• “Vallance and Whitty, kings of bad science” – Above all others, Vallance and Whitty have “shaped our political leaders’ reactions to the Covid virus”, writes Kate Dunlop in the Conservative Woman. Regrettably, they have “revealed public health science to be bad science”
• “A very convenient pandemic” – Daniel Miller poses a question in the Conservative Woman: “If the pandemic had not been assumed to exist, and the reckless and cynical interventions against it had not taken place, how would anyone know there was one?”
• “The Faucian Bargain” – Omar S. Kahn reviews Steve Deace’s book, Faucian Bargain: The Most Powerful and Dangerous Bureaucrat in American History
• “Handshakes and hugs are good for you – it’s vital they make a comeback after the pandemic” – In the long term, the benefits of handshakes and hugs may outweigh the risks, say Kimberly Dienes and Simon Nicholas Williams in the Conversation
• “Communicating the potential benefits and harms of the Astra-Zeneca COVID-19 vaccine” – Commentary on the AstraZeneca benefits and harms graphs that were shown at Wednesday’s press conference from the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication
• “Dr. Mike Yeadon” – James Delingpole interviews the Ex-Pfizer scientist for the Delingpod
• “Can lockdowns ever work?” – Mike Yeadon comes to the Pandemic podcast, hosted by Dan Astin-Gregory
• “ECHR rules obligatory vaccination may be necessary” – Deutsche Welle reports on the ruling by the the European Court of Human Rights that the Czech health policy requiring compulsory vaccination of children against nine diseases, including diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and measles, does not violate the European Convention on Human Rights
• “In Israel, vaccine passports are already redundant” – When out and about in Israel “you barely ever, if at all, get asked to show your pass”, says Anshel Pfeffer in the Spectator. In fact, he suggests, it was not meant as a condition for entry but “as an incentive so younger people would feel they were going to get something out of being vaccinated”
• “Legault enforces 8pm pandemic curfew for Montreal” –  Montreal, Gatineau, Lévis, and Quebec City are all facing renewed Covid restrictions, the Post Millennial reports
• “GraceLife Church shuttered by authorities after months of flouting COVID-19 rules” – Metal fencing has been put up around GraceLife church, Alberta and, according to the Edmonton Journal, it is to stay there until the church can prove it will abide by public health restrictions
• “Texas has fewer Covid cases than Michigan – despite nearly 20 million more people, and no restrictions” – In spite of the alarmist predictions made when the state lifted its mask mandate, Covid cases in Texas are at a record low, the FEE point out. In Michigan, meanwhile, they are surging
• “Covid’s vindication of free movement” – “The Covid pandemic proved conclusively that people and knowledge must flow freely,” says Peter C. Earle at AIER
• “AstraZeneca woes grow as Australia, Philippines, African Union curb COVID-19 shots” – More and more countries are curbing their use of the AstraZeneca vaccine, Reuters reports
• “The developing world can’t afford lockdown” – “Lockdowns are hammering the developing world,” say Spiked, highlighting research that indicates the global middle class shrank last year for the first time since 1990
• “Why should we hate ‘vaxports’” – Bridget Phetasy tells Freddy Gray why she hates the ‘vaxport’ in the latest Americano podcast
• “There cannot be any doubt we have reached herd immunity” – “That’s why there was a vaccination programme,” says Dr. Clare Craig